


The Call and the Answer

by DonnesCafe



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Sacrifice, post-HLV, relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-19
Updated: 2014-04-19
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1490929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DonnesCafe/pseuds/DonnesCafe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why isn't John Watson happy? Sometimes knowing the answer isn't enough. A short fic related, a bit widdershins, to Holy Saturday. Love, loss, sacrifice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Call and the Answer

He should be happy. Everyone around him was happy. Or at least drunk and loud and giving a reasonable show of good cheer. A rendition of “Wild Rover,” more notable for enthusiasm than strict adherence to melody, even now assaulted his ears. He winced. 

Mary left off singing and clapping. “John, you ok?” She reached out a hand and squeezed his arm. 

“It’s just a bit loud,” he shouted over the din. 

“That’s part of the fun!” She smiled. She liked Irish pubs, even tarted-up London fascimiles. 

“Yeah,” he said, noncommittally, but smiling back. The new baby made nights out a sometime thing. He had no intention of letting his mood spoil it for her. Mrs. Hudson was baby-sitting little Sarah Rose. His smile grew more genuine as he thought of his daughter. His beautiful, perfect daughter. “Just got a bit of a headache. I’ll be fine.” The music ended with a flourish of guitar chords from the musicians and stomping from the audience. The band was taking a break. Thank God, he thought. Then he asked himself when he had become such a curmudgeon. “Want another?” He gestured toward Mary’s almost-empty pint of cider. 

“Please,” she smiled. “I’ll call Mrs. Hudson while I can still hear.” 

John wandered over to the crowded bar. The table service was hopeless on a Saturday night, and people stood three deep at the bar. This might take a while. He absently put a hand up to his neck and rubbed at the knot that had formed there. Was he just getting old? Why was he feeling so gloomy? Because he was, he admitted to himself. He felt uneasy in his own skin, in his own life. 

He had a beautiful daughter. He and Mary were together. Sherlock hadn’t gone to Eastern Europe to die. Magnussen was dead. Mary was safe. The three people who mattered to him most were alive and well, at least for the moment. Poor Harry didn’t count. Her sodden life had somehow slipped out of the equation. He would still do what was necessary to help her, but the emotional sting had gone out of it. So three lodestars to steer by: Rose, Mary, Sherlock. Celestial navigation. Against all hope, all still in his sky. None fallen, none gone supernova, although that had been a near run thing. 

He moved one more space closer to the bar. A young women had come up to the mike and started to sing, something traditional-sounding, quiet. Backed only by a gawky young red-head on a fiddle. He sighed in relief at the clear, lilting soprano. The fiddle reminded him of Sherlock, sweet and lyrical. Something unknotted inside him as the tune unwound, floated above the bar noise. Not that Sherlock was sweet and lyrical, but his violin was. Sherlock was a potential supernova. The tiger burning bright, the star about to explode, collapse, taking everything with it into a black hole. The black hole of its non-existence. He thought of Sherlock flaming at Magnussen, his hair brightened into a halo against the light and wind from the helicopters. Then kneeling, bloodless face and Saville row suit, an unlikely crucifix in a non-existent Dali painting. John shook his head, aware that his imagination was wildly mixing its metaphors. He moved one more space closer to the bar. 

The clear soprano cut through his thoughts and he turned to listen.  


_Lay your head upon my pillow_  
 _Let your heart beat close to mine_  
 _With no past and no tomorrow_  
 _Two hearts lost in space and time_  


His heart clenched in sympathy with the lovely, soaring voice. His head followed, unwillingly. Why wasn’t he happy? Because the head he imagined on his pillow had dark curls, the heart against his beat in a pale, scarred chest. If he could lose himself in space and time, if he could forget his duty, if he had only two hearts to care for, if he had only one bright star to steer by.... If. 

He was pressed against the bar. “Sir?” Oh. “Draft cider.” His voice was unsteady. He held up two fingers and cleared his throat. “Two.”  


The fiddle and voice twined like lovers.  


_You are the call, I am the answer_  
 _You are the wish and I am the way_  
 _You the music, I the dancer_  
 _You are the night and I am the day_  
 _You are the night and I am the day_  


Three stars and he was lost in the night. John paid for the drinks, straightened his shoulders, and slowly walked back to the table.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the beautiful song _The Call and the Answer_ by Phil Colclough. Lovely version  
> [ here. ](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQJjfT4Y5xs&list=RDrQJjfT4Y5xs&feature=share) Can't quite let the JohnLock alone. Sorry Mary.


End file.
